


Win or Die

by the_random_writer



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Baseball, Bookstores, CIA, FBI, First Meetings, Gen, Guns, Interviews, Knives, Lust at First Sight, Sarcasm, Secrets, Snark, Weirdness, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: Ty and Zane need someone to help them out at the store. When Heather McAllister turns up to interview for the job, it doesn't take her long to realize she may have bitten off more than she can chew.This is an OFC-centric story, told mostly from her point of view. If you don't like OFCs, please press the Back button now.And no, this OFC is not a self-insert :-)





	Win or Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gretchen_Zeller_Barnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gretchen_Zeller_Barnes/gifts).



Sporting her friendliest, most relaxed smile, Heather strolled up to the desk.

The man behind it was slightly intimidating—tall, lean and solidly built—and based on the phone call she'd just overheard, he wasn't in the nicest of moods.

She _really_ hoped he wasn't Zane.

Interviews were daunting enough at the best of times, even when the interviewer was the sweetest person on the whole planet. Which, going on what she'd heard him say in the last couple of minutes, this guy almost certainly wasn't. She could be snarky and sarcastic herself when the occasion or person deserved it, but _this_ man? This man's snark was running at an _Olympic_ level.

 _Don't judge a bookstore dude by his cover_ , she sternly reminded herself. _Just because he looks and sounds as if he could strangle you with his bare hands or silently kill you in your sleep doesn't mean he actually will _._ Maybe his snark is all for show, and he likes to rescue drowning kittens in his spare time _.__

The man looked up as the sound of her steps made him realize he wasn't alone.

He wasn't what she would ever call pretty, but he was handsome in a raffish way, with full lips, imposing brows, light-brown hair going grey at the temples and striking, inquisitive eyes that couldn't decide if they wanted to be amber or green. His hands and forearms were criss-crossed with scars, which, unsurprisingly, did nothing to dispel her unease.

"Hey, how you doing?" he asked in a perfectly pleasant tone. "You looking for some help with a book?"

"Um, actually, I'm here to meet Zane?" she said.

He smiled, snapped his fingers and gestured at her. "You must be Heather," he said.

She nodded and gave him a smile in return. "Yeah, that's me."

"And you're here to interview for the part-time, sales-assistant position," he added, jerking his chin at the red and white 'Help Wanted' sign on the door.

"I am, yeah. I dropped my resumé in your mailbox on Monday, Zane called me on Tuesday, left a message asking me to come in on Friday at six?"

"He mentioned that, yeah." The man sighed and furrowed his brows. "Bad news on that front, I'm afraid."

"Have you given the job to someone else?" she asked, feeling her heart plummet into her feet.

"What? Oh, sorry, no, we still have the job," the man explained. "It's just that Zane was called away to deal with a"—he paused to quietly clear his throat—"an emergency collection problem, so he won't be able to do the interview tonight."

Okay, that wasn't so bad.

But she had to wonder—what the _hell_ was an emergency collection problem? Had someone taken Zane's mother hostage, and was now threatening to cut her throat unless he picked up three boxes of books in the next thirty to forty-five minutes?

Although, come to think of it, maybe that explained how a book as shitty as _Fifty Shades of Grey_ had managed to sell so many units.

"I can always come back another day," she offered. "I don't have a job at the moment, so whatever works for Zane will work just fine for me as well."

"Yeah, that's what Zane asked me to ask you."

From the slightly flippant way he said it, she had the feeling another, Zane-free suggestion was coming.

"But?" she prompted.

"But it doesn't seem fair to drag you down here all over again, just cus we had a resourcing issue. Not your fault we can't get our collection schedule together."

"I don't mind," she said. "I'm only a ten minute bus ride away, so it wouldn't really cause me a problem."

He drummed his fingers on the counter. "So, we _could_ reschedule…"

This time, instead of prompting, she waited him out.

"Or… if you want, I was thinking… you could, uh, do the interview with me instead?"

"I'm okay with that if Zane is."

The man nodded. "Won't be a problem." He snorted slightly. "Or, if it _is_ a problem, it'll be mine to deal with, not yours."

She didn't mind if she had to come back, but she had to admit, it would be nice to have this wrapped up and done instead of leaving it hanging until next week. Did it really matter one way or the other who she did the interview with?

"Okay, then yeah, sure, why not?"

"Great!" A hand was extended across the counter. "I'm Ty, by the way. Ty Grady. Zane's my husband."

She grasped and firmly shook the hand. "I'm Heather. Heather McAllister. Nice to meet you, Ty."

"Likewise."

She gestured around the store. "Last time I came down to Fell's Point, this building was still under construction. It's nice to see the end result."

His eyes lit up. "Looks great, right?" he asked with pleasure and pride in his voice.

It certainly did. The décor was a perfectly crafted combination of Victorian gothic and twenty-first century minimalism—like Edgar Allen Poe had married Ikea. "And business is good?"

"Pretty good. Busy some days, quiet on others. But well enough that we need someone to help us out."

"Which is where I come in," she said, then held up a hand and hastily added, "Or might come in, if you like me enough to hire me."

Ty grinned. "If we like you enough to hire you, yeah."

He slipped out from behind the counter and made his way to the door. She couldn't help but notice how smoothly and surely he moved, like a man on a secret mission, or a man with a righteous purpose to fill.

"Let me just lock up for the night, then we'll head to the kitchen out back, do the interview there," he said.

"Great."

"Oh, and I should probably mention, there's gonna be a couple of other people helping me out."

She blinked in surprise. Three people on an interview panel? For a part-time sales assistant job? That seemed a little excessive. What the _hell_ kind of books was this bookstore selling?

Her unease must have showed on her face.

"Don't worry," Ty said, smiling again. "They're both really good buddies of mine. They don't bite." He snickered slightly. "Actually, I'm pretty sure one of 'em bites, but only if you ask him nicely."

Okay, that wasn't even _remotely_ disturbing.

Ty turned the key in the lock, slid the security bolts into place, flipped the sign, switched out the lights, then turned and waved to the narrow hallway behind her. "Let's head to the kitchen," he said, indicating for her to walk on ahead.

She nodded, smiled and started walking; Ty fell in a few feet behind.

There was nothing overtly menacing about the arrangement, but for some ridiculous reason, she felt as if she was being carefully herded towards her death.

What if Zane's phone call had been a trap? What if the interview was an elaborate ruse? What if there were no other people in the back room, and instead of being a respectable local business owner, Ty was really a serial killer? This was Baltimore, after all, and Hannibal Lecter was one of the city's most infamous (if fictional) sons.

Even worse, what if there _were_ two other people in the back room, and all _three_ of them were serial killers, holding a one day, serial killer convention, with her as the extra special guest?

_Stop being so goddamn suspicious. When was the last time you heard of a serial killer working out of a store in Fell's Point? He's just a normal, regular dude. You're gonna be absolutely fine._

As a precaution, she stuck her right hand in her coat pocket and wrapped her fingers around her keys, with the sharp point of her back door key sticking out between two knuckles. She couldn't take him—not with his height and weight and all that lean mass—but if something bad was about to happen, she wasn't going down without a fight.

They came to a set of French doors—one side was sitting a few inches open.

"Go on in," Ty urged.

She took a deep breath, pushed through the door and stepped into a gleaming, spacious, modern kitchen.

Thankfully, there was no plastic sheet spread out on the floor, no dried splatter marks on the ceiling, no rack of knives and hooks adorning the wall. Just two normal-looking men, both dressed in jeans and casual tees, one perched up on the counter, one sitting backwards across a fold-down chair.

Ty made the introductions as he came in behind her. "Heather, this is Kelly Abbott," he said, gesturing to the man in the chair. He nodded at the man on the counter. "And that's Nick O'Flaherty over there. Guys, this is Heather McAllister. She's here to interview for the sales assistant position."

Kelly stood up to offer a hand. "Hey, Heather, how's it going?" he asked.

He was a few inches shorter than Ty, slim and wiry, with blue-grey eyes and light brown hair. His features were pleasing rather than striking, and the smile he gave her seemed honest and warm. Her initial instinct was to trust him, but the next thirty to sixty minutes would tell her if those instincts were right.

She gave the hand a hearty shake. "I'm good, thank you. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," he said, then sank back onto his chair.

He didn't move much, but enough for her to see that even though he looked unassuming, underneath the easy-going facade, there was something more complex going on.

She jumped as something thudded behind her, but it was only the other man, leaping down from his comfortable perch.

He was a taller than Kelly—almost as tall as Ty, in fact, and more worryingly, just as solidly built—with short, neat, reddish-blond hair, piercing green eyes and an adorable dimple on his clean-shaven chin. In her (not so humble) opinion, he was better looking than Kelly as well.

This time, it was she who held out the hand. "Nice to meet you, Nick," she said.

He gripped and shook. "Same," he said. He gave her a slightly suspicious glare. "You're not Scottish, are you?" he asked. His accent was Boston to the core, but that was hardly surprising, given his complexion and name.

"I have Scottish ancestry, if that's what you mean. So, my name's Scottish, but I'm as American as they come."

That seemed to put him at ease.

"Don't mind him," Ty said as he pulled a notebook and pen from a drawer. "He took a vacation in Scotland a few years ago that didn't end well. Ever since then, he gets kinda nervous around anything Scottish."

"Scotland basically tried to kill me," Nick sourly said.

"Sorry about that," she said, even though she really had nothing to apologize for. "If it's any consolation, the last time I visited Dublin, I almost choked to death on a pint of Guinness."

That got her a grin. "How the _hell_ do you almost choke to death on a pint of Guinness?" Nick asked, his eyes shining in amusement.

"How the _hell_ does an entire country try to kill you?"

"Okay, yeah, you got me there."

Ty set out another three chairs—one in front of the oversized fridge, one to either side of Kelly.

No prizes for guessing which chair was hers.

She slipped off her coat, hung it around the back of her chair, smoothed down the folds of her skirt, then took a seat and waited for Ty and his colleagues to settle.

Ty froze halfway to sitting down. "Oh, yeah, um, before we start, would you like something to drink? Water, a can of pop, some coffee?"

"Thanks, but I'm fine," she said, remembering her mentor's advice to never ask for a drink unless the interviewer had one as well.

Three pairs of eyes settled on her.

She folded her hands in her lap and smiled, waiting for one of the men to make the first move.

As she'd expected, it was Ty who finally broke the peace. "So, Heather. Tell us a bit about yourself."

"Okay, well, would you like me to start with my qualifications or my work experience?" She wasn't about to tell them any strictly personal information—that was a no-no in any interview setting, even one as strange and casual as this.

Fortunately, Ty took the correction in his stride. "Let's go over your qualifications first. What training do you have that would make you a good fit for the job?"

That was a question she was happy answer. "Okay, well, I have a Bachelor's degree in Literary Studies, which is the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. I also have a Certificate of Archival Studies, which is about building and curating archives."

Ty paused to scribble some notes. "And what about your work experience? Tell us a bit about where you've been."

Another easy, simple response. "I have ten years' experience in the literary sector, including two years with The New York Times Book Review, one year with the New Yorker, three years with Barnes & Noble and two years with the Maryland Public Library system."

Silence.

Nick leaned all the way back in his chair to talk to Ty behind Kelly's back. "She's _way_ too smart to work for you," she heard Nick whisper. "She's probably read more books than you even know how to count."

Ty huffed, but it was Kelly who spoke. "Why the hell do you want this job?" he asked. "I mean, no offense, but that's a pretty impressive list of credentials, and this is a part-time bookstore job. Aren't you selling yourself a little bit short?"

She grinned, letting him know no offense had been taken. "I need to earn a bit of money, but I'm studying for my Master's degree through distance learning, so I don't really want to work full-time. The sign said twenty to twenty-four hours per week, which I'm pretty sure I can manage just fine."

"What's your Master's degree gonna be in?" Kelly asked next.

"Archival Science, upgrading from my Certificate, specializing in moving image preservation."

" _Definitely_ too smart," Nick muttered, looking at her but speaking to Ty. "You hire her, she's gonna be running circles around you by the end of the month. You'll be reduced to unpacking boxes and cleaning the johns."

Ty shrugged. "Works for me. It'll leave me more time to deal with the uh, delivery and collection problems."

"Oh, yeah. The _delivery and collection problems_. How could I forget about those?"

She knew the phrase was a euphemism, but given the slightly snarky look on Nick's face, she wasn't sure she wanted to know what for.

And really, how many delivery and collection problems could a store this size in Fell's Point have? Was the place (or its owners) on the UPS and FedEx version of a government no-fly list?

"How about hours?" Ty asked next. "Right now, we're open from ten to six, Tuesday through Saturday, noon to five on Sunday, closed all day on Monday. We'd like to open on Mondays as well, maybe stay open 'til eight a couple of nights. Would any of those hours cause a problem for you?"

She shook her head. "As long as you don't need me here until midnight, no."

"And how would you feel about us running your name through a background check?"

That one took her by surprise. "Depends," she said. "Do you mean a basic criminal check, or would you also want to look at my financial and employment records?"

"Definitely the criminal check, maybe your employment records as well."

She shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I mean, if you need it, you need it. Just seems like a lot for a part-time job in a store."

"It's standard procedure," Ty explained. "We like to know who we're working with, is all."

"It's cus they used to work for the FBI," Nick said.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. "Who used to work for the FBI?" she asked.

"Me and Zane," Ty reluctantly explained, giving his friend a 'shut your mouth' glare. "Before we opened the store, we were special agents for the Bureau's Baltimore office."

Great.

Of all the bookstores, in all the world, she had to apply to work in one run by a pair of former federal agents.

Time to confess to her youthful sins.

"Okay, then I should probably tell you right now, when you run the criminal record check, it's gonna come back with something on it."

To a man, her interviewers sat up straight.

"Did you do something naughty?" Kelly asked, with a mischievous gleam in his eye that struck her as somewhat out of place for a formal interview process.

She cleared her throat. "Yeah, I um, I was arrested once."

"What'd you do?" Nick asked in a suddenly serious tone.

"I was out drinking with a large group of friends, things got a little bit out of hand, the bar owner called the cops, and I, uh, I _might_ have told one of them he had a pretty mouth."

Ty giggled, which earned him a dirty look from his red-headed friend.

Kelly sighed and shook his head. " _Disgusting_ behaviour," he complained. "Imagine being that rude to a _cop_ _,_ of all people."

"Yeah, imagine," Nick drily said.

"It was a long time ago, _and_ it was only a misdemeanor," she quickly added. "It's not the kind of thing I would ever do now."

"It's fine," Ty said, waving the problem away. "Not like you _shivved_ the guy, for Christ's sake. And not like I've never done something just as stupid myself."

She wasn't looking at him when it happened, but Heather was _sure_ she heard Nick mutter something about Toronto…

"What's the next one?" Kelly asked.

Ty frowned at his friend. "What's the next what?"

"Question," Kelly explained. "Job interview, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Questions, right." Ty paused to think. "If I gave you ten dollars and sent you to buy me a carton of milk, and the carton only cost you three dollars, how much of the change would you give me back?"

A little weird, although, it _did_ speak to trust and honesty issues.

"All of it," she said.

"All seven bucks?" Ty said. "You wouldn't consider keeping some of it for yourself?"

She shook her head. "My Master's degree's costing me an arm and a leg, but my situation's not so bad I need to literally steal someone's milk money from them."

More scribbling.

Ten seconds later, the next question came. "What baseball team do you cheer for?" Ty asked.

Nick rolled his eyes and muttered again. Muttering seemed to be one of his primary talents, not to mention his primary way of communicating.

On this one, tactful honesty was the best approach. She didn't want to end up in a situation where she had to pretend to like a sport she knew absolutely nothing about, just to keep her employer happy. "I don't like baseball," she confessed.

"What, at _all_?" Kelly exclaimed, as if not liking baseball was a highly improper state of affairs.

She shook her head. "Think it's one of the most boring sports people can play."

That was an honest moment too far for Nick. He sat bolt upright in his chair, a shocked expression on his face. "Okay, _wow_ ," was all he said.

"Don't hold back on our account," Kelly drily added. "Let it all out. Say what you _really_ mean."

"You _did_ ask," she calmly said.

"You wouldn't even cheer for the Orioles at a home game to decide the World Series?" Ty wanted to know.

Nick sneered. "Like the O's have a snowball's chance in hell of ever winning the East Division, never mind the goddamn Series."

"Don't remember the Sox giving them too much trouble at the opening game last week," Ty shot back.

"I wouldn't, no," she quickly replied, recognizing the baseball 'debate' was about to escalate into a full-on fight. "But it's nothing against the O's. When I lived in New York, I never cheered for the Yankees, either."

"Okay, she's not _all_ bad," Nick murmured to Ty. "You can put her back in the 'maybe' column."

Ty scribbled some notes in his book, then looked to his friends. "Either of you want to field a question for me?"

Kelly put up his hand. "I've got one."

"Have at it."

"If you had to kill someone, would you rather use a gun or a knife?"

Nick blew out a 'fuck my life' sigh and reached up to rub the bridge of his nose.

She couldn't blame him—she'd expected some peculiar questions, but nothing quite as peculiar as this.

But two could play this weird-as-balls game. If they were going to ask her some quirky questions, she would give them some quirky answers right back.

"A knife," she said.

"Why's that?"

"Because knives are elegant and subtle. In my opinion, guns are kind of a loutish weapon."

"A knife's not much use in a gunfight," Ty pointed out. From the tone of his voice, there were no prizes for guessing which type of weapon he favoured.

Which meant she'd just called him a lout.

Great.

"But a knife never runs out of ammo, and you don't need a good line of fire to stab someone in the stomach."

Nick snickered. "Garrett's gonna love her," he murmured. "You tell him she said that, he'll hire her on the goddamn spot."

"Garrett can _bite_ me," Ty murmured back.

"I guess that means you don't own a gun?" Kelly asked.

"Correct."

"You ever used one?"

"Yes."

"What and when?"

"A nine-millimetre semi-automatic. Might have been a Glock, but don't quote me on that. A while back, at a gun range training session."

"And?" Nick asked.

"Didn't much like it. The noise and recoil scared the hell out of me. Used up all the bullets I'd paid for, put the gun down, walked out the door and never went back."

"But in an emergency, you'd be able to pick one up and use it?"

The way he said it, he made it sound as if the Baltimore bookstore scene was actually a cover for organized crime, and that taking the job would plunge her into something out of a Scorsese movie.

Awesome.

She sighed, but nodded. "I'd rather not, but if I had to, yeah, I probably could."

Ty scribbled in his notebook again.

"I have a question," Nick said.

Ty gave him a 'go for it' wave.

"If you could choose, what's the _one_ personality trait you wouldn't want your boss to have?" Nick asked.

Oh, man. Talk about a minefield question. Given how little she knew about Zane and Ty, how the _hell_ should she answer that?

Maybe some gentle humour would help.

"You mean, apart from the obvious things, like terrible hygiene or wandering hands?"

Sadly, two problems she'd had to deal with on several occasions.

"You won't need to worry about either of those with us," Ty said, smiling slightly. "We know how to wash, and if our hands wander, they won't be wandering onto you."

That was… comforting? she guessed…

"I don't like being micro-managed," was her final, more serious answer. "If you trust me enough to hire me, you should trust me enough to get on with the job."

Nick cocked his head at Ty. "Does Garrett micro-manage?"

"Not really, no," Ty said, directing his answer at her as much as at Nick. "He has a procedure for making the coffee, and he doesn't like it when I touch the computer, but other than that, he's pretty laid back."

"Do _you_ micro-manage?" she asked.

Ty blushed and cleared his throat. "I won't tell you how to do your job, but I _do_ like some things in the store to be done in a particular way."

Uh oh.

She'd worked with people like that before—in a setting this organization-heavy, it would either be a thing of beauty, or make her life a living hell.

Best to nip this one in the bud.

"I don't have a problem with that, as long as you know a bookstore's supposed to organize books by genre or subject first, then by the author's last name." She wagged a finger. "Absolutely _no_ ordering by size or shape."

"Yeah, but what if a book's really tall and deep, or even worse, really _short_ and deep, and organizing it by the author's last name would make it stick out like a sore thumb?"

"Doesn't matter. It stays where it fits in the sequence of names, even if it sticks out like a sore thumb."

Ty pursed his lips and tapped his pen on his pad; she'd obviously hit a sore spot, there.

Nick flashed her an understanding grin. "He knows you're right, he just won't admit it, cus it offends his delicate, hillbilly sensibilities."

"Not selling books'll offend his delicate sensibilities even more. And customers don't buy books they can't find. Shelves that look pretty but that are in the wrong order don't put money in your drawer."

"What about the _actual_ books?" Kelly asked. "Is there anything you wouldn't want the store to sell in the first place?"

It was nice to finally be asked some proper, bookstore related questions.

"I don't approve of censorship, and I think people should have the freedom to buy and read whatever they want—"

"But?" Nick interjected.

"But I wouldn't lose any sleep if the store had a policy of not selling _Mein Kampf_ or _The Turner Diaries_."

Ty frowned. "Don't think I've heard of that second one."

"You're not missing anything," she warned. "Unless you like shitty, race war stories where all the non-Christian, non-straight, non-white people end up being exterminated."

"Okay, yeah, let's not put that one on the Christmas stocking list, hmm?" Nick said.

"We're trying to support LGBTQ authors, so there's no way in _hell_ something like that would ever go on our shelves," Ty added.

"Good."

Ty drew in a breath and pursed his lips—another question was on its way.

 _Please let this one be normal as well_ , she silently pleaded. _Please don't ask me what the colour of money is, how many balloons could fit in this room or why manhole covers are round_ _._

"Would you rather fight one hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?"

She blew out a quiet sigh of relief. As strange as it seemed, this one was actually easy.

"One horse-sized duck. No contest."

"Not a fan of horses, then, huh?"

"Can't stand the things. They smell terrible, and they bite."

Just like most of the men she'd dated. And in their defense, at least horses did all of their grunting, farting and belching outside.

Kelly tsk'ed and shook his head. "Garrett's not gonna like that," he said. "She's probably out of the 'maybe' column."

"Garrett, that's Zane, right?" she asked.

Ty nodded.

"And he likes horses?"

"He grew up on a ranch in Texas, so yeah."

She wanted to say there was no accounting for taste, but Zane's taste extended to Ty (and she couldn't fault the man's judgement there), so perhaps that wasn't the wisest comment to make.

Ty waggled his pen at her. "So, you don't like horses, but what's your opinion on dogs and cats?"

Another time for an honest answer, just in case he liked to bring his pack of slobbering Dobermans into work with him. "I'm not really much of a dog person, either. I can tolerate them, as long as they're well-trained and below knee height, but the larger breeds make me a little nervous."

"You scared one of them's gonna take you down?" Nick asked.

She nodded and smiled. "A little bit, yeah." She looked to the store owner again. "But I love cats. No problems with cats at all."

Ty wrote two lines in his book, then made a very deliberate show of circling one line. Her answer was either outrageously bad, or exceedingly good. Maybe her initial thoughts had been right, and he _did_ like to rescue kittens in his spare time.

"I have a question," Kelly said. "It's a little bit weird, though."

"We like weird," Ty said.

Heather sighed. _They_ liked weird, but normal was much better for her.

"If you could get rid of one state in the US, wipe it off the map completely, which state would it be and why?"

Her lips twitched. "I guess Texas is off the cards?"

Which was a shame, because when it came to choosing dysfunctional places, whatever the measure, Texas was always near the top of the list.

Ty answered the question for Kelly. "Might not go over too well with my husband, so yeah, it is." He held up a warning finger. "And just so you know, don't say West Virginia, either."

That explained Nick's hillbilly comment.

She pretended to think. "Idaho," she then declared.

Nick gave her a quizzical look. "What's wrong with Idaho?" he asked.

"What's _right_ with Idaho?"

He shrugged. "Okay, yeah. That's fair."

"Idaho it is," Ty murmured, adding another note to his book. "Not a terrible choice, but I'd have gone with Florida, myself." He looked up and smiled. "Next question's from me."

"Shoot."

"What would you do if you came into the store one day, and found me trying to get rid of a body?"

She groaned inside. Maybe her instincts had been right from the start, and Ty really _was_ a serial killer. Although, he'd have to be an _outrageously_ stupid serial killer to give her such an obvious sign. Or, maybe he was testing her, like Hannibal Lecter and his stupid opera questions, and the quality of her answer would determine her fate.

If cryptic and clever was what he wanted, cryptic and clever was what he would get.

"Depends," she said.

Three sets of eyebrows shot up.

Kelly said, "On _what_?"

"Several things. But mostly on whose body it was."

"Why the hell would that matter?" said Nick.

"If the dead person was a harmless, little, old lady, and you were feasting on her still-beating heart, I'd probably run for the hills as fast as I could."

"Sensible."

"But if the dead person was a serial killer"—she stared at Ty and paused to let her 'warning' sink in—"or a serial rapist, or someone who'd abused or murdered a kid, I'd probably roll up my sleeves and offer to help."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really." She shrugged slightly. "I'm not the kind of person who loses sleep over the death of rapists or kiddie killers."

"Huh," was all Ty said.

She couldn't tell if the 'huh' was bad or good, if he was putting her in the 'Hire Now' column, or making a mental note to call a psychologist buddy when they were done.

Kelly cleared his throat—the question ball was back in his court. "If you could give one piece of advice to your last boss, what would it be?"

Only semi-weird, but also easy.

"Well, my last boss went to prison for federal income tax evasion, so I'd probably tell him to pay his taxes."

"Really?"

"He's serving eighteen months in Otisville, so really, yeah."

"Wow."

Strange that they seemed so shocked. "I guess that means none of you guys have ever worked for someone who broke the law?"

All three men fell deathly quiet.

O-kay. That was apparently a bad thing to ask.

Ty reacted by ignoring the question completely and looking at Nick. "You're up next."

"Didn't realize we were taking turns."

"We're not. But you said you were gonna help, and you've barely asked her anything so far."

"Maybe I don't have to ask her questions to help."

"This is a job interview, O. How the fuck are you helping me if you're _not_ asking questions?"

"Maybe I'm helping by watching how she behaves when she's talking to you," Nick shot back. "You ever thought of that?"

From the sullen look on Ty's face, he obviously hadn't. "Okay, but what If _I_ want to watch how she behaves for a few minutes?" he griped. "How the fuck can I do that when I have to do all the talking as well?"

Heather cleared her throat. "Um, you guys _do_ know I'm sitting right here. And that I can hear every word you're saying."

" _Now_ look what you did," Ty said to Nick. "Now she knows we're paying attention to her behaviour and body language as well as her answers to our questions."

"It's not _my_ fault you don't know how to run an interrogation!"

Ty grimaced; another silence fell over the room.

She raised a hand. "Okay, um, for all our sakes, especially mine, how about we just pretend that moment never happened?"

Kelly nodded. " _Excellent_ idea." He patted Nick on the thigh. "But Grady's right, babe. It is your turn."

"Fine, it's my turn," Nick muttered.

He paused for a few moments to think, then snickered.

Uh oh. Something _really_ creative was coming.

"Do you think of Monopoly as a game you play with enemies, or with friends?"

"Ooh, that's good," Ty whispered.

"Enemies," she firmly declared. "And not just Monopoly. Any board game. If you're not prepared to lose every last friend you have, you're playing it the wrong goddamn way."

Kelly was half-amused, half-shocked. "Isn't that a little harsh? It's just a game. It's supposed to be fun."

"Fun is for wimps."

Ty blinked like a lizard, swallowed, looked at Nick, then started scribbling furiously in his book.

Smiling, Nick asked, "But you at least follow the rules, right?"

"The only time I look at the rules is when an argument breaks out. You try to wriggle out of paying me rent, you're gonna get a Monopoly board in the face."

Nobody had an answer for that.

"But it's actually a good question to ask for a book store job."

Or that, either.

She heaved a small sigh. "You _do_ know it was the author George Orwell who said 'sport is war without the guns', right?"

Ty wagged his pen at her. "I think his precise phrase was 'sport is war minus the shooting', but we get your point."

"And board games are sport minus the sweating."

"Win or die, huh?" Kelly asked.

"Absolutely. No middle ground."

"Speaking of win or die," Nick started, "I have another um, slightly unusual question for you."

"What's that?"

"What would you do if a zombie apocalypse actually happened?"

"Jesus, Irish, really?" Ty muttered.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mister Horse-Sized Ducks or Duck-Sized Horses, is a zombie apocalypse too weird-as-balls for you?"

Ty glowered, but gave no response.

Nick turned back, smiling politely. "Sorry, as I was saying."

"Zombie apocalypse, right," Heather repeated. She shrugged. "I'm not much of a survivalist type, so I'd probably make my favourite meal and watch my favourite movie, then dig out a really good bottle of wine and use it to wash down a handful of pills."

"Go quietly into the night, huh?"

"Yup."

"Seems a bit defeatist, though," Kelly pointed out. "What happened to win or die?"

"It's not defeat when there's nothing to win. And I don't much like the idea of living without plumbing or dental care. Sorry."

"You want hot and cold running television on demand, right?"

"Absolutely."

"You're _definitely_ gonna get on with Zane," Ty said, scribbling in his notebook again. "He thinks slumming it means staying at a Holiday Inn instead of a Hilton Grand."

"Sounds like a clever man."

"You'd think that, but then you remember he married Ty," Kelly murmured.

"Oh, like your taste in men is any better," Ty retorted.

Nick huffed and opened his mouth to object.

A thumping sound at the back door cut the brewing squabble off at the knees.

Everyone froze.

The noise continued—two more thumps, a car door slamming, some heavy footsteps, then a key going into the lock.

Ty threw his notebook and pen on the counter and all but sprinted across to the door, reaching it just as the handle dipped. He caught the door and held it from swinging all the way open, standing in a way that barred her from seeing who was about to make an appearance, or what the hell was going on outside.

If she didn't know better, she would swear Ty's position was a deliberate move.

What the _hell_ were these people doing?

A few seconds later, Ty relaxed and moved away to allow another man to enter.

And _boy_ , was the man a feast for the eyes. Brown eyes so dark they were almost black, curly, shoulder-length black hair with silver scattered at the temples, a chiseled jaw with a smattering of designer stubble, and the tallest, fittest, most god-like body she'd _ever_ had the pleasure to see. He was wearing a pair of low-riding jeans, a white Henley tee, a distressed looking, black leather jacket, and was that cowboy boots on his feet?

 _Please don't be Zane, please don't be Zane_ , she silently pleaded. _Please be one of Ty's single and heterosexual friends_.

The man frowned as he saw the crowd in the room. "The hell's going on?" he asked.

Ty turned to gesture at her. "Remember you had an interview for the part-time, sales assistant job?"

He _was_ Zane—she wanted to scream.

Oh, well. If she got the job, at least both of her bosses would be easy to ogle.

Zane nodded. "I asked you to reschedule it to sometime next week." Brows raised, he tartly said, "Which you obviously didn't."

"I figured it wasn't fair to ask Heather to come down to the store all over again, just cus we had a scheduling issue."

"So, instead of just doing what I said, you decided to interview her yourself."

Ty pointed to his friends, sharing the credit (or spreading the blame). "Nick and Kelly helped."

She wasn't sure 'helped' was really the best word to use, but she wasn't about to correct the man in front of his spouse.

Zane sighed, stared at the floor and tapped his foot, probably thinking his options over, then smiled and strode across to her chair. "You must be Heather," he said, holding out a welcoming hand.

She rose from her seat. "That's me, yeah." She shook the hand. "And you must be Zane."

"Sorry about cancelling on you at the last minute," he said. "Something came up that I couldn't get out of, and I wasn't sure how long it would take."

She waved his apology away. "No problem. I mean, stuff happens, right?"

Zane snorted. "Stuff happens, yeah."

"And Ty was able to take over for you, so in the end, it worked out just fine."

Assuming 'fine' was a word you could use to describe a three-on-one ~~interrogation~~ conversation that had covered zombies, baseball, corpse disposal, Scotland, Idaho, male hygiene and tax evasion.

"Yeah, about that," Zane started. He turned to gesture at the other three men. "How uh, how _bad_ did it get?"

"How bad did what get?"

"The interview process. What kind of weird sh—stuff did they ask you?"

"What makes you think we asked her anything weird?" Ty protested.

Zane's response was to cock a brow and glare at Ty until the other man held up his hands in defeat. "Okay," Ty huffed. "So, we might have gotten a _little_ creative."

"I hope they didn't give you too hard a time," Zane said.

She shook her head. "It's not every day someone asks me what I would do in a zombie apocalypse, but it was a _lot_ more fun than being asked how many tennis balls can fit in a bus."

Zane sighed again. "That one was Nick, wasn't it?"

"Don't even _try_ to pretend you've never wanted to ask that, Garrett," Nick warned. "I've seen your apocalypse survival plan. I know how bad you've got it."

"Was that the worst?" Zane asked next.

"Well…"

"You can tell me, it's okay. I've heard some real shockers in the last couple of weeks."

She cleared her throat. "They, um, they asked me what I would do if I came into work one day and found one of you trying to get rid of a body."

Zane groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. "Was that from Ty?"

She nodded.

"Okay, yeah. I'm gonna apologize on my husband's behalf, and I can absolutely, _one hundred percent_ assure you, if come to work here, you will never, _ever_ find us trying to get rid of a body." He shot Ty another censuring glare. "We're both normal, average people. He's just been reading too many true crime stories."

"Okay, that's good to know, thanks."

"Great."

"Cus I was actually starting to wonder if Ty was some kind of serial killer."

Behind them, Kelly started to snicker.

"It's okay, Ty's not a serial killer," Zane said. "It's just that, sometimes, his imagination gets the better of him."

"Well, an imagination's usually a good thing to have when you run a bookstore for a living."

"I'm standing right here, you know," the object of their complaints complained. "And I can hear everything you assholes are saying."

Zane gestured to the French doors. "Why don't the two of us head to the desk, have a quick, wrap-up chat about the position?"

"Sure."

After what she'd been through tonight, she just hoped the wrap-up chat in question was to say 'can you start tomorrow' and not 'never darken our doorstep again'.

She grabbed her coat from the back of her chair. "It was nice to meet you," she said to Kelly and Nick.

Kelly flipped her a jaunty, two-fingered salute.

"Likewise," Nick said.

She stopped at the door to wait for Zane.

"You go on ahead," he urged. "I need to have a quick chat with the guys."

She knew what he really meant was 'I need to rip them all a new one in private'.

"No problem," she said, then walked through the door and pulled it firmly closed behind her.

 _Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that kitchen right now_ , she thought as she ambled away…

 

 

Zane waited for Heather's footsteps to fade, then turned back to Ty and his friends.

No doubt thinking a verbal reaming was coming, Ty held up deflecting hands. "If you're gonna bitch us out about the interview stuff, don't bother," he said. "Yeah, we got a little creative, and yeah, we might have crossed a few lines, but if it's any consolation, she gave just as good as she got."

Zane shook his head. "I don't care about the interview stuff." That wasn't entirely true—he wanted to know how Heather had fared—but right now, they had a more pressing concern.

"You don't?" Kelly asked.

Ty was just as confused. "Then what the hell do you need to talk to us about?"

"We have a _delivery_ , remember?" Although, in this instance, 'collection' was probably a more suitable term.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that."

"Where's the package?" Nick wearily asked. The lack of enthusiasm wasn't surprising—Zane knew Nick was still coming to terms with the whole 'running a CIA safe house' thing.

"In the trunk of the car. It's pretty heavy, so it might need a couple of you to lift it out."

"You have any trouble picking it up?" Ty asked.

Zane held up his left elbow to show them a four inch slice in his sleeve. They couldn't see it through the fabric, but his forearm was bleeding slightly. "A little bit, yeah."

Ty's expression darkened. "Might need to accidentally drop it a couple of times while we're bringing it in," he muttered.

"No breaky," Zane said, holding up a warning finger. "Remember what Cooper said. It needs to be in _perfect_ condition."

"Cooper can _blow_ me. When a package hurts my husband, I'm gonna hurt the package right back."

"Ty…."

"Okay, okay," Ty grumbled at him. "No breaky, I promise."

Zane gestured at the back door. "Can I leave you guys to deal with the goods while I go finish up with Heather?"

"As long as by finish up, you mean finding out when she can start," Ty said.

"You want me to hire her?" Zane asked, looking from Ty to Kelly to Nick, including all three men in the answer.

Ty nodded. "I liked her, so yeah." He waved at his friends. "What about you guys?"

"She gets my vote," Kelly said. "Just don't ever ask me to play Monopoly with her."

Nick didn't look convinced. "Still kinda pissed about that baseball answer."

"What baseball answer?" Zane asked.

"She told us she thinks baseball's one of the most boring sports people can play."

Slightly rude, but not important. "And?"

"And that's kind of insulting, don't you think?"

"Are we running a baseball team?"

"No."

"Are we only selling baseball-themed books?"

"No, but—"

"Then what's the fucking problem?"

"She says she's used a gun before, and would be willing to use one again in a pinch," Kelly put in. "Given what you guys are up to here, and what you've been through in the last couple of years, I think that's _way_ more important than knowing which team she does or doesn't cheer for."

Zane shook his head—that wasn't a road he really wanted to take. "We don't need her to know how to use a gun. She's only gonna be stacking shelves and selling some books." And maybe answering some phone calls as well, especially when Ty was having one of his 'fuck people' moments.

"Never hurts to be prepared."

Sadly, Kelly was probably right. "No, I guess it doesn't."

"By the way, she also doesn't like horses, dogs, Nazis, Idaho, rapists or kiddie killers," Nick said.

Zane rubbed the bridge of his nose. What the fuck kind of questions had The Three Stooges asked to find out answers like those?

Although, he couldn't blame her on the Idaho thing.

"But she _does_ like cats," Ty added. "Which means she's gonna be fine with Jiminy and Cricket."

It was then Zane noticed what was missing. "Yeah, where the hell are the furballs anyway?" The cats were both in love with Nick—it wasn't like them to go into hiding when the ex-cop was in the building. Maybe Kelly's (futile) attempts to befriend them had scared them away.

Ty pointed a thumb at the ceiling. "Sleeping on top of the bed in the holding room on the third floor."

"Did you read her resumé?" Kelly asked, going back to the subject of Heather.

"Course I did."

"So, you know how qualified she is?"

Zane snorted. "Why'd you think I wanted to hire her?"

"You _do_ realize, she's probably got more book smarts than the four of us put together?"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I guess not, no."

"So, what I'm hearing here is, she's a go?" Zane asked, scanning faces to check for objections.

Everyone nodded—no objections were forthcoming.

"Great," he said. "Let me find out if she still wants the job, you guys go deal with the special package."

 

 

Footsteps echoed around the store; it was probably Zane, done with his 'chat', come to tell her what was happening next.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, the Texan emerged from the gloom of the hall.

He smiled as he saw her. "Thanks for waiting," he said. "And again, I'm sorry if the interview wasn't what you expected."

"Like I said, it was kind of fun," she said. " _Way_ more interesting than when I interviewed for the New Yorker."

"So, um, the jobs yours if you still want it."

She mentally punched her fist in the air. "Yes, I do," she said. "Absolutely."

"Okay, great," he said, smiling broadly again. "I need to call a couple of people to set up the contract and payroll stuff, but why don't you come in at noon on Tuesday, we'll show you the ropes and take it from there?"

"Ty said you'd need to run a criminal record check. Don't you want to wait until that's all done?"

Zane waved the question away. "We can worry about the background check later."

Ty had seemed quite firm on that point, but when it came to the hirings and firings, maybe Zane was the boss. If he didn't think the background check was important, who was she to argue with him? It wasn't as if she had any malicious intentions—she just wanted to earn a few dollars and sell a few books.

She nodded firmly. "Okay, then I guess I'll see you on Tuesday at noon." She held out her hand, which he shook again. "Thanks for the opportunity," she said. "I'm sure it's gonna be a blast."

 

 

Zane stood by the window in the dark, watching as Heather sauntered away, no doubt heading for the bus stop at the far end of the street.

Once she was out of sight, he turned and made his way back to the desk. He brought out the special, laptop computer—the one on loan from their Company friends—cracked it open and powered it up.

As he waited for the login screen to appear, he grabbed Heather's resumé from the pile of paperwork on the shelf behind him.

He swiped this thumb across the scanner, entered his user name and password, then, once the system was ready, double-clicked the desktop icon labelled 'Secure Information Request'.

A standard input form appeared.

He clicked the button for Background Check, waited for the form to refresh, then slowly worked his way down the page, selecting all of the options he wanted—Criminal, Arrest, Incarceration, Sex Offender, Citizenship, Immigration, Legal Working Status, Drug Tests, Education, Employment History, Credit Rating, Litigation.

It was only a part-time, sales assistant job, but if there was one lesson they'd learned from the Burns and Tanner affair, it was that there was no such thing as being too careful about who you allowed into your life. Before she turned up for her first shift, he wanted to be totally sure who Heather McAllister was, and that she had no threatening skeletons hiding in her professional closet.

He scanned the resumé header, checking the spelling of her last name, then carefully typed it into the form, along with her cell number, email and full home address. Just a pity he didn't have her date of birth, but that was a no-no on a resumé now.

Not that it mattered. A missing date of birth wouldn't pose much of a challenge for the data guys at Langley. Based on how Amanda's team had performed in the past, the search results would probably be in his mailbox by the morning, tomorrow evening at the latest.

He hit Enter to submit the request. A few seconds later, the icon stopped spinning, to be replaced by a 'Request Received' message. Job done, he put the laptop to sleep, closed it and shoved it back under the desk, with Heather's resumé resting on top.

A crash and a shout echoed along the hall.

Dammit.

He'd told Ty not to drop or damage the package—how hard could it be to follow a single, simple command?

 

 

Just as he'd promised, Jason was waiting for her on President Street.

As she reached for the handle, she heard the lock clunk—he must have seen her arrive in his rearview mirrors. She opened the door, slipped into the passenger seat, gave him a curt nod of greeting, then reached up to pull down her belt.

He cranked the ignition, brought up the lights, checked his mirrors and drove away.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Great."

"You get the job?"

"You saw the resumé. Of course I did."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't complain. "How was the interview?"

"Fine, except it wasn't Garrett asking the questions. He got called away to deal with a problem just before I arrived. Said it was some kind of emergency delivery issue?"

Jason grimaced. "Yeah, sorry about that. Turns out we had a bit of a scheduling snafu, Garrett's boss asked him to step in to deal with something another agent would usually cover. He had to go out to pick something up instead of waiting for it to come to the store. I didn't get the message until it was too late to call you back in."

She hoped the snafu was only due to a breakdown in communication, and not because the Task Force Chief running Grady and Garrett's department had decided to pull some territorial bullshit on them. "I'm assuming the person who called Garrett in knows how close they came to fucking up my whole week?"

He nodded. "Let's just say some harsh comments have been delivered."

Good. "Oh, and while we're on the subject of people not getting the message, why the _fuck_ didn't you assholes tell me Grady and Garrett used to be feebs?" They'd told her Grady had been a Marine, and that before the NIA debacle, both men had done some 'government work', but other than that, information about their former professions had been quite thin on the ground.

Government work. What a joke.

"We didn't want you to know too much, in case it prejudiced your opinion of them and altered how you behaved during the interview process." He shrugged, but there was no apology in the motion. "You can blame the old lady for that one. She wanted to be sure you would give a completely authentic performance."

"That why you never showed me their photos, either?"

He nodded. "We wanted you to react as if you were meeting them for the first time."

It made sense, but that didn't mean she was happy about it. She'd been on this team for almost four years, and this would be her sixth undercover assignment. She knew exactly what she was doing. She needed a partner, not a nanny. "You guys _do_ remember how much I hate being micro-managed?" she asked. On that interview answer, she hadn't been lying. "You couldn't have read me into the file, and trusted me to get on with the job?"

"Wasn't my call."

"Right."

He huffed a sigh. "Given you've been gone for an hour, I guess you must have interviewed with Grady instead?"

The change of subject was a warning to let the nannying issue go. He was reminding her it was what it was, and that there was no point in whining about it, especially not to someone as junior as him.

Warning noted.

"Yeah," was all she said.

Jason's lips twitched. "Is he as crazy as everyone says?"

"He asked me what I would do if I came into work one day and found him trying to get rid of a body."

The twitch erupted into a snicker. "How the _fuck_ did you answer that?"

"Said it depended on who he'd just killed, and that if the body belonged to a rapist or a kiddie killer, I'd roll up my sleeves and offer to help."

"Bet he loved that."

Her turn to shrug. "He seemed to take it pretty well."

"Never met the man myself, but I've watched the recording of a debriefing Lynch did with him a few years ago during the Jonas affair." He shuddered slightly. "Dude's at _least_ a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic."

"Yeah, well. He used to be a Recon marine. If you'd seen half of what he's probably seen in the last twenty years, I'm pretty sure your elevator wouldn't go all the way to the top floor, either."

"True."

He stopped for a red.

She peered out the side window and frowned. "Where the hell are we?" she asked. She'd only been in Baltimore for a couple of weeks, working out of a rented house in Arbour Manor. She knew her way around Fell's Point, Perkins Homes and Harbor East, but other than that, she hadn't quite figured out the lay of the land.

"About to turn right onto the three ninety-five." He gestured straight ahead. "That's Oriole Park at the Yards right there."

The baseball field, which reminded her of something else she should share.

"Speaking of Recon marines, did you know two of Grady's old friends from the Corps are in town?"

He shook his head. "Didn't come up on any sitrep I read. What makes you think they were Recon guys and not just regular friends?"

"Regular friends don't refer to an interview as an interrogation."

"What were their names?"

"Nick O'Flaherty and Kelly Abbott."

"You meet them?"

She nodded. "Grady even allowed them to ask some of the interview questions."

"Hmm," he said.

"So I'm right, then? They're Recon guys?"

He sighed. "They are, yeah. But don't let the old lady know you figured that out."

"Wouldn't need to figure things out if you'd just tell me what I need to know in the first place," she grumbled.

"They seem as sanity-challenged as Grady?" he asked, ignoring her bitching again.

"Not sure. Abbott struck me as pretty grounded, but I think O'Flaherty's got a light case of the crazies." She snickered. "He's nowhere near as bad as Grady, though. You can smell his strain of freaky-deaky the minute you step through the door."

"O'Flaherty's had a real interesting life. Became a cop after he left the Corps."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Homicide division."

"Big baseball fan, it seems."

"He's from Boston. Course he is."

"Any idea why he's got a problem with Scotland?"

Another sigh. "Long story. Don't ask."

Before she could bitch him out again, her phone vibrated against her hip. She leaned over to pull it out of her pocket, swiped to open and grinned as she read the message. "Garrett just put in a formal request for a background check."

She wasn't concerned. Unlike Grady, whose 'fuck you' attitude to procedures had already earned him the righteous, voodoo doll-level wrath of everyone in the Compliance department, Garrett (mostly) knew how to follow the rules, and the rules said no civilian hires on a Company-managed site without a full check of their background and records.

"What's he asking for?" Jason said.

She scanned the message. "The works. Everything from my bra size to my Costco membership number."

"Can't fault him for that. He's only doing what we trained him to do."

"Just have to hope Amanda's team have all the false records in place."

"You'll be fine. Amanda's people know what they're doing. They'll make sure all the boxes are checked."

"Did you remind her to add the misdemeanour arrest?"

"Yes."

"Still don't understand why I have to lie to them about who I am. We all work for the same organization. Wouldn't they want to know I'm a Company woman?"

Jason shook his head. "Not right now, they wouldn't. They're still dealing with _way_ too many trust issues. Especially Garrett. He finds out you're a CIA observer, he'll march you out the front door and into the Inner Harbor at the wrong end of a gun. Doesn't matter if you're only there to watch his and Grady's back."

"Still not sure they _need_ someone to watch their backs. The NIA's been neutered and hollowed out, and the Vega Cartel's a smoking ruin. Who the hell's left to come after them now?"

"The organizations themselves are gone, but we still haven't rounded up all of the people," he warned. "Some of the sneakier players managed to slither away before the final hammer came down."

"Like Liam Bell."

He nodded. "Like Liam Bell. McGavin's convinced he died in Miami, but I'm not so sure. If anyone could survive what happened that night, it's Bell. Guy's as slithery as an eel in a bucket of spunk."

She grunted and wrinkled her nose. Given what she'd read about Bell, Jason's opinion was probably right, but it wasn't the classiest of euphemisms. "You _do_ realize, I'm nowhere near as well-trained as either Garrett or Grady?" she said. "I mean, I can shoot a gun and throw a knife, and I know how to handle myself in a fight, but Grady used to be a marine. And if they were feebs, they'll both have gone through Quantico training. If someone tries to take out the store, they're more likely to end up saving me than I am to end up saving them."

"It's the element of surprise that counts. Anyone who aims for the store will think you're just a harmless civilian. They won't realize until it's too late that you have counter-assault and weapons training as well."

She supposed there was some sense to the plan. "That came up in the interview, you know."

His eyebrows shot up. "What, that you have counter-assault and weapons training?"

"Not in those exact words, but Abbott asked me if I'd ever used a gun."

"What'd you tell him?"

"Followed our fearless leader's advice, told him a lie that's kind of based on the truth. Said I'd tried one out at a range, but I didn't like it so I never went back."

"You just neglected to mention the gun range in question's the one in the basement at Langley."

She flashed him a spiteful grin. "What can I say? Guess you're not the only one who knows how to keep things from people."

"Once you're actually on the job, you'll need to find out where they've hidden their backup weapons. We obviously know about the stuff in the basement, but I'm pretty sure they'll have stashed some other toys of their own."

She was more than just pretty sure. "I found three already."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"How the hell'd you manage that?"

"Turned up for the interview fifteen minutes early, browsed while Grady was bitching someone out on the phone," she said. "Found a Glock 26 taped to the underside of the cistern lid in the customer toilet, a Beretta Tomcat in the wooden base of a lamp and a Sig Sauer 226 in a hollowed-out fuse box up on the second floor. Had my suspicions about one of the first floor window sashes as well, cus it looked much deeper than the others, but it was right in the nearest camera's field of view. Didn't want to get caught on video checking it out." She shrugged slightly. "When I have the store to myself, finding the rest will give me something to do."

"Pretty sure you're gonna have plenty to do already, seeing as how you're supposed to be studying for a Master's degree."

She waved her partner's worries away. "John's been sending me weekly notes from his course, and writing a really good Dummy's Guide for me. I'm sure I'll be fine. Not like Grady or Garrett know the first thing about Literary or Archival Studies."

"You're not worried, then?"

"What would I be worried about? It's only gonna be two or three six hour shifts a week. I don't have to go in deep and fake a whole life."

"It sounds as if you've got all the bases covered, but if there's one thing we've learned about Garrett and Grady since we brought them on board, it's that the only predictable thing about them is how annoyingly unpredictable they are."

She turned away, hiding the fact she was rolling her eyes. She wasn't surprised Jason had so many concerns—he'd always been far more cautious than her, more likely to wait until he had all the facts before he took a next step or made a decision. That wasn't always a bad trait to have, especially on more dangerous missions, but it meant he usually played the game far too timidly for her liking.

_It's win or die, my friend. And you'll never win anything worth having by sitting on the side of the dock waiting for perfect weather conditions._

"Like I said, I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm adaptable. Unpredictable people aren't a problem for me."

True to form, he had another, nannying warning to share. "Just remember, Grady's got a psychology degree, and I'm pretty sure the FBI put him through criminal profiler training, which means he's good at getting in people's heads," he added. "You slip up and let the real Heather show, even for a couple of seconds, he'll be all over you like white on rice. You're gonna need to be on permanent guard."

The profiler training thing was new, but it still wasn't enough to cause her concern. "The only real danger is if I drink, which I know makes me overly chatty, so as long as I don't go bar-hopping with them, that shouldn't be much of a problem. And remember, Garrett doesn't drink."

"Garrett doesn't, but Grady still does."

"Yeah, but only when he's out with his friends. Which I'm gonna make a point of not becoming."

Jason sighed, finally running out of things about which to complain. "Then I guess everything's ready to go."

"Yes, I guess it is."


End file.
